For years, clever makers on the Sudomod forums have been building their own portable video game emulation consoles by putting Raspberry Pis into original Game Boy shells. What started with a lot of parts and soldering evolved into all-in-one printed circuit boards such as the Kite Circuit Sword. While Kite's brilliant Circuit Sword PCB takes a lot of the pain out of building your own Game Boy Zero, it still requires a substantial time investment, a knowledge of hobby electronics and soldering, and access to certain tools.

At howchoo, we've been teaching you how to build similar unique systems for years. Finally, we're excited to announce that a legitimate company has built what we've all wanted: a portable Raspberry Pi retro gaming rig in the form of a [slightly smaller] original Game Boy DMG-01.

The GPi features many of the same ports and features as the original. Photo: Nintendo Life

The GPi features many of the features of the original Game Boy -- including an internal speaker, DC barrel power jack, screen brightness wheel, volume wheel, headphone jack, and power switch. It also adds a few -- like easy external SD card access.

The unit features a DC barrel to USB cable that will power the unit without batteries. You can connect this to any 5V power source -- such as your computer's USB port, an AC adapter, or even a portable power bank.

The Retroflag GPi is slightly smaller than the original DMG-01 Game Boy. Photo: Nintendo Life

At 135x81x32mm, the Retroflag GPi Case is slightly smaller than the Original Game Boy (DMG-01) — but is otherwise a faithful recreation.

Conspicuously present on the face of the device are new X and Y buttons, allowing you to play additional games from the Super Nintendo era onward. On the back, two shoulder buttons further cement the number of games you'll be able to play.

Gone are the days of waiting for the next street lamp to pass so that you could unpause and continue your game on a hellish green screen. The GPi features a full color IPS LCD display with a wider aspect ratio than the original Game Boy's. At 2.8", it's also noticeably larger than the original screen, despite the handheld itself being smaller.

The GPi screen resolution is 320x240. This is sufficient for playing retro games, which were designed for low-resolution displays to begin with.

The GPi is powered using three AA batteries, providing a total of 4.5V. Since the Raspberry Pi requires 5V to run, internal circuitry likely boosts this 4.5V to 5V. Boosting voltage decreases the total output amperage and, thus, the overall capacity (mAh) of the batteries themselves.

After running some basic power benchmark tests, the GPi seems to consume an average of 350mA at 5V, giving you several hours of gameplay on basic disposable batteries. In any case, I recommend picking up a set of rechargeable AA batteries to keep you going.

Here you can see the speaker slots and headphone jack in the same location as the original. Photo: Nintendo Life

The GPi features an internal speaker as well as a headphone jack in the same location as the original. Of course, you can also output sound via bluetooth directly from the Pi to your bluetooth headphones or speaker of choice.

The speaker gets surprisingly loud and the sound quality is decent. There is a small amount of static present, but this can be fixed with some software tweaks inside the system itself.

The Retroflag GPi Case is a solid, faithful recreation of our beloved DMG-01. It seems they've nailed every detail -- except maybe for power. It would be really nice to have a rechargeable internal battery rather than hauling around a bunch of primitive AAs.

And at just $69.99, this system is an amazing value. You'll still need to bring your own Pi Zero, SD card, and grab some rechargeable batteries, but even with those costs factored in, the GPi is well worth it.

The Raspberry Pi single-board computer has had built-in Bluetooth connectivity since the release of the Raspberry Pi 3 in 2016, allowing you to connect wireless peripherals such as keyboards, game controllers, headsets, and more to your device.
If you don’t have a model of Raspberry Pi that has Bluetooth built-in, you can use a third-party USB adapter to add support. You may need to install additional software packages to do this, depending on the adapter you use.
If you're using using Raspberry Pi OS (previously Raspbian), then Bluetooth should be enabled by default, but you'll need to follow these additional steps to connect and set up your devices.
These instructions will work for Raspberry Pi OS users, including Raspberry Pi OS Lite, which lacks a graphical desktop environment by default.